Advent IV 2010

Homily for Advent IV 19 December 2010
These beautiful gospel readings that we have at Christmas time are probably the best known Biblical passages of all, and they are so familiar to us as we hear them again year after year that if we are not careful they pass over our heads like so much background music, like the carols playing in the shops that no one actually listens to – it is quite difficult for us to look at these texts and try to imagine how they would sound to us if we were hearing them for the first time.
Look at today’s Gospel, from Matthew. What we have in Matthew’s Gospel, all scholars would agree, is the very first attempt by someone in the Christian community to write down something about the birth of Our Lord, about how and why God the Son came into our world as a human being. Mark’s Gospel you know is a bit older, but Mark doesn’t mention anything at all about how Jesus was born, he just barges straight in with the adult Jesus getting baptised and beginning his ministry. But Matthew wants to tell us about the birth and infancy of Our Lord, and he says “this is how Jesus Christ came to be born”. And straightaway we have a mention of the Holy Spirit- Mary “was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit”. And then a few lines later on, the angel tells Joseph that “she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit”. The evangelist is determined to tell us that right from the start there is the action of the Spirit, of the Spirit of God, in this new state of affairs that is the Incarnation. Now of course as you know Matthew was writing primarily for an audience of Jewish Christians, of people who knew the scriptures- that is why he is constantly quoting verses of the Old Testament to prove his points. And here, with these references to the Holy Spirit, we can see what he is trying to remind his audience of – all the places in the Old Testament where the Spirit is involved, so that they can draw the parallels for themselves.
Let’s consider the main examples. First of all, we go to Genesis 1 and 2, the two creation stories. Here, at the very outset of creation, “when the earth was without form and void” we read (Gen 1 ii) that “the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters”. And as it was with the first creation, so it is with the new creation- at the very start, at the moment of the conception of Our Lord the Spirit of God was moving in Our Lady’s womb. Genesis 2 shows us God forming Adam like a potter moulding the clay, and we see that Adam comes alive when God breathes into his nostrils- a sign in itself of great intimacy- “the breath of life” (Gen 2vii). And you may remember that in Hebrew breath and spirit are the same word, ruach, and so this could just as easily be translated “God breathed into his nostrils the Spirit of life”. Again, you get the point: for the first human being formed God needed to give it his Spirit to give it life, and now, for this new human being, this Second Adam as St Paul likes to call Jesus, it is formed in the womb of Our Lady and given life there by God’s breath of life, the Spirit of Life. What is happening with Our Lord’s birth and entry into our world as a human being is the start of a new creation, of a new way of being human, and of a new way of us relating as humans to God. The breath of God is the creating force now as before, as one of the psalms reminds us: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made; by the breath of his mouth all their array” (Ps 33vi) In both creations, old and new, the Holy Spirit is at work!
This new creation inaugurated by the birth of Our Lord is desperately needed by our fallen confused world that has so utterly lost its way, that it is like the Israelites wandering round and round in the desert of Sinai when all the time the Promised Land was only a few hours’ drive away (well, you know what I mean). The desert is an arid place of death and decay, and that brings me to the next reference to the Spirit- I turn now to Ezekiel and his vision – you remember that valley, full of dry bones, and many of you will know the song too! (I won’t sing it, relax.) The valley is full of the bones, the dry bones, of many many dead men and the Spirit asks Ezekiel the question “Son of man, can these bones live?” (Ezek 37 iii) The story goes on: “Thus says the Lord God: come from the four winds, o breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live” (ix) and “the breath came into them and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great host” (x.) Again, remember that for breath we can also put spirit- “come from the four winds, o Spirit, and breathe upon these…. that they may live”. Yes, humanity, dead in its awareness of God, can be brought back to life, and the people that Our Lord will call to be part of this new worldview, this new creation, will be indeed “an exceedingly great host”. And the action of the Spirit is how this will happen.
Just one more example, from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah also, like Ezekiel, talks of dry valleys, desperately in need of irrigation if they are ever to be fruitful. For him the Spirit of God is like some wonderful refreshing rain, that the parched earth will drink up and that will cause all sorts of seeds to germinate and spring up- you know how the desert can bloom. Isaiah hears God saying “I shall pour out water on the thirsty soil and streams on the dry land. I shall pour out my Spirit on your descendants, my blessing on your offspring, and they will spring up among the grass like willows on the banks of a stream” (Is 44 iii-iv) The world is thirsty for the good news of Jesus Christ and if only human beings will receive the message of salvation then God will pour out his Spirit upon them, irrigate their lives and then who knows what will start to grow, what green shoots will spring up, what will change, both for individuals and for society as a whole?
This is, I feel sure, the sort of train of thought that the evangelist wanted to start up in those first readers of his Gospel, of the passage we have heard today- these are the references he hoped we would be picking up. The birth of Our Lord is almost upon us, only a week to go. As we prepare to greet his birth, let us ask the Holy Spirit to come into our hearts as he did into Mary’s womb, and engender there a new person, a new me, a new improved me, a me that is truly and fully alive. Come from the four winds, O Spirit, and breathe upon us that we may live. Amen.